The Tube Challenge: 270 Stations! Did we do it?

28th April 2014

On Friday 4th April Team Bob set off on the mad tube challenge to visit all 270 London tube stops in one day! Yes, including rush hours. With very little time to spare we made it and we hit our target! A big thank you to our supporters! Here’s how it panned out…

10pm: The night before – FIRST Mistake – The hotel Bar!

It started the night before at the deserted Premier Inn in Hemel Hempstead – commanding wonderful views of the A41

We arrived the night before, excited by the challenge we decided to have a couple of drinks in the deserted bar before retiring for an early night. Similar to a bunch of naughty school kids this ended up with bubbles, beer and conversation into the wee hours. We were all tucked up in bed by 3.20am, a little exuberant and worse for wear.

4.30 AM: One hour later! Chesham Station.

Our train was to leave at 5.15am sharp and if we missed any of the trains planned it would be a potential disaster for the schedule. We met Geoff (@geofftech) and his team (Chris & Matt) who together in August 2013 managed to achieve the current Guinness World Record for visiting all 270 tube stations in the fastest time. Chris, the ‘route-master’ had put together a route that was more ‘group friendly’ than the record breaker and was similar to the record breaking route of 2009 and an animation can be seen here and is well worth the watch if you want to get a feel of how mental the route was!

First Train of the Day

Team thinking bob went as penguins….. Of course.

5.14am – Mistake Number 2!

A penguin (lets call her Penguin B) leaves the train to take a photo.

5.15am

The doors close on the first tube of the day and a penguin is left behind. Doh!

5.40am

A Penguin is reunited with its flock at Moor Park.

Second Change of the Day & a Penguin reunion

9.00am – Should have brought a pillow!

After doing stints on the Metropolitan Line, Piccadilly Line, Central and District its time to knock the Bakerloo Line down. Time for a nap and some lunch!

Sleeping Penguins

10.30am – Should have brought a book!

70 stations completed – 200 to go – just over 25% of the stations completed… and one VERY well read copy of the Metro.

1x Metro – Read cover to cover

11.30am – Interview Time!

An interview on BBC London 94.9 FM with Vanessa Feltz!

#airtime!

12.15pm – Definitely should have packed a lunch!

What a way to bring up the 100 station mark – doughnuts brought to us by @SteveRob5 ‘s friend. For once it wasn’t a noise complaint that brought the police over.

What was that about cops & doughnuts???

1.40pm

2.20pm

Half WAAAAAAAAYYYY!!! through the tube challenge. Finally!!! Plenty more to go though

3.12pm – Which theme song do you remember?

The inevitable madness overtakes everyone:

3.30pm – Hold on! What’s wrong with this photo?

Can you spot the odd thing about this photo??

3.45pm

Right, think we’ve done everything an iPhone can do on this journey…… Wait – no there’s still camera filters to play with!

Ahhh…. Everyone remembers their first time in Epping

5.55pm

And the inevitable announcement: Severe delays on the Jubilee Line

What we weren’t waiting for…..

6.17pm #Walkthetube Really?

Legs burning from our 5th sprinting “#walkthetube” connection and we’re starting to wonder if the right hash tag has been chosen for the day.

8.35pm – Still funny!

A lifelong ambition fulfilled….

9.48pm – Shouldn’t have drank that last Redbull….

Some last minute strategy decisions – it’s getting tight – one more loo break and we won’t make it to all the stations!! Legs crossed to the finish line.

Change of Plan

10.25pm – Nooo! So close to home!

Tough for a few members of team bob visihome station at 10.25 after 17 hours on the tube…. and 45 minutes sleep the night before…. aarrrrrrgghhhh!

Let me out of here!

11.15pm

The end is near! Heathrow Terminal 4 next stop and some happy faces in there!

11.28pm – We made it!! Tube challenge complete.

We made it at last

18 hours 13 Minutes 29 Seconds Later

Click to Enlarge

Why did we do it?

Learning and Education are close to our hearts so we sponsor Ousman (a young Gambian boy) to go to international school.